Text messaging has become a popular mode of communication in many mobile (or wireless) networks. One example of text messaging is Short Message Service (SMS), which is a set of communication protocols allowing the exchange of short text messages (i.e., 160 characters or less) between devices. While the term “text message” traditionally referred to text-only messages sent using SMS, it has been extended to include multimedia messages, such as images, video, sound content, etc. The multimedia messages may be sent using Multimedia Message Service (MMS) protocol. Often times, mobile users more frequently use text messaging for communication than voice calls.
Although text messaging is traditionally thought of as two mobile devices exchanging text messages, there may be web-based applications that allow an end user to send or receive text messages. For example, an end user may access a 3rd party web site for sending/receiving text messages. Through the 3rd party web site, the end user may enter a message intended for a recipient and a telephone number for the recipient. The web-based application then generates a send request for the text message using an Application Programming Interface (API) defined for web-based services. In another example, some social networking services (e.g., Facebook) may provide text messaging capabilities through a web site. When a user logs into his/her social network account, one option available to the end user may be to send/receive text messages.
Organizations have defined standard APIs for web-based applications to use when sending/receiving text messages. One API that is used for web applications is a RESTful API, also referred to as a RESTful web API. The RESTful web API is a set of operations that use HTTP methods, such as POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE, while conforming to Representational State Transfer (REST) constraints.
Unfortunately, the RESTful APIs presently used for web services do not provide enough flexibility for today's evolving networks.